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Saturday, October 31, 2015

"Apologize and Then Keep Quiet Forever"

Recently the news has been full of the
story of a Roman Catholic monsignor, Krzysztof Charamsa of Poland, the Adjunct
Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman
Catholic Church (shown in the photo with his boyfriend).The Reverend Charamsa
was a former Vatican official, and he was stripped of his post recently after he
publicly acknowledged that he was gay and also in a gay relationship with
another man.He has written the Pope a
long and heart-felt letter (some might describe it more as “histrionic” than
“heart-felt”), denouncing the Roman Catholic Church as “violent”, “fanatical”,
“incapable of dialogue with humanity”, “inhuman, insensitive, unjust and
violent”, “Pharisaical and hypocritical, locked into its cold and inhuman
doctrine without mercy or charity, a homophobic Church that knows only how to
hate”.He also declared that the Church
was also a “particularly hateful Church, which is presently led by pastors
without hearts or brains”.In his letter
he also denounced the Church’s official pronouncements on the issue of
homosexuality as “violent and offensive”, “obscene”, and its clergy as
“violently homophobic”.There is more,
but you get the idea.His favourite word
is “violent”, used eight times.(The
full text can be read here.)In the penultimate paragraph (before he
ends by saying of course that he will pray for the Pope and will do everything
he can “to help homosexual people wake the Catholic Church from its inhuman
sleep, which by now has reached bestial limits of intolerability”), he says
that the Church must “apologize and then keep quiet forever”.Presumably such imposed silence also means
that the Church must forget about its previously noble “dialogue with
humanity”.

Apart
from the fury, hatred, and the violence of the language, it is an extraordinary
letter.Some have suggested that the
fury and violence is evidence that the man is in pain.He is certainly upset about being stripped of
his job at the Vatican because he has a gay boyfriend. But it is not so much a personal letter as a
long and angry slamming of the office door on the way out after being given the
papal pink slip.Despite his
characterization of the Roman Catholic Church as “incapable of dialogue”, it
seems clear that he himself is not in the mood for much dialogue.He asks from his church not dialogue, but
simple capitulation to his own gay agenda and ideology—that is why his final
demand is that the Church apologize and then shut up forever.I understand the nature of such demands.When it occurs in the school-yard, it is
called “bullying”—though in this case the muscle is provided by not by violent
shoving or hitting the other party with your lunch-box, but by violent language
and self-righteous rhetoric. And, like
I did in the school-yard when faced with such demands as a child, I decline to
get into it with him.I would rather
just walk away and eat my lunch safely and quietly somewhere else.

However,
if I did choose to reply, I might say the following, for after all, Monsignor
Charamsa has not simply written a personal letter, but issued a kind of public
manifesto, and it is to the public manifesto that one can reply.Manifestos invite reply; that is the point of
a manifesto.

In
my reply, I would first of all say that the traditional Christian Church, be it
Roman Catholic or Orthodox, should not heed impassioned demands that it shut up
and say nothing when its central teachings are trampled, denied, and
distorted.The Church has a divine duty
to proclaim the truth to whoever wants to listen, and especially to its own
members.St. Paul did not “keep quiet
forever” about the false Christology proclaimed by the early Gnostics, or about
the supposed necessity of circumcision demanded by the early Judaizers.It is true that both the Gnostics and the
Judaizers would have been happier if he did, but such silence would have been
spiritually criminal and a betrayal of Christ.Of course the World will not like it when opposed by the Church.No one likes being opposed and
contradicted.It can be very irritating
and infuriating.But being an adult involves
being committed to non-violent dialogue when such disagreements occur, not
screaming at the other party because they dare to contradict.It is easy to have a tantrum and to scream
“shut up!”.It is harder to be an adult
and go on debating calmly.No doubt the
child having the tantrum is “in pain”.But such pain is no excuse for the tantrum.

Secondly,
merely pronouncing that something is sinful is not of itself an act of
violence, hatred, marginalization, stigmatization, or any of the other things
of which the Reverend Charamsa accuses us.Saying that abortion is morally sinful, though irritating to
abortionists and those using their services, does not “marginalize” those who
abort.Rather it is simply declaring
what forms of behaviour are compatible with a profession of the Christian Faith
and which are not, and acting accordingly.If one chooses to abort one’s child, one cannot then claim that the
Church somehow marginalizes you and tramples on you because it says you should
not have done it and calls you to repentance.The Monsignor assumes with proving that homosexual activity is okay, and
then becomes furious when the Church says that it is not.But he is the one who chose to engage in
activities which placed him outside the bounds of the Church.If the teaching of Christ and His apostles
about marriage and sexuality is true, what else can the Church do?

Finally
we note the inherent absurdity of Monsignor’s position.The Church which he voluntarily joined,
accepted ordination and promotion and money from, and remained in for all his
forty-three years is one which has always declared that 1. homosexual acts are
sinful, and 2. its clergy must remain celibate.This cannot have been a surprise to Charamsa.It is not as if the Catholic Church up until yesterday
said that homosexual acts were just fine and that its clergy could be sexually
active if they wanted to.Why the
indignation now?That is like joining a
group of committed vegetarians and then fulminating against them because they
expel you from the group because you keep eating steak and saying that
vegetarianism is too narrow.One may eat
all the steak one likes, but then one cannot expect the group promoting
vegetarianism to welcome you in the group as one of its leaders.It is difficult not to conclude that the real
offense in the Monsignor’s eyes was not so much the position of the Catholic
Church on homosexuality as the fact that their fired him for having a boyfriend.One may continue to debate the issue of
homosexuality and the teaching of the Church if one likes, but let us at least
be consistent.The issue here about
Charamsa is not just that of his homosexuality, but of his basic
integrity.

Fr. Lawrence on Ancient Faith:

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Fr. L. at oca.org

Followers

Father Lawrence Farley holds an M.Div.from Wycliffe College, Toronto School of Theology, and also completed a Certificate program at St. Tikhon's Seminary.

Since 1987 he has served as the pastor of St. Herman's Orthodox Church, OCA (Archdiocese of Canada) in Langley BC. Several priests, deacons, and lay members of new missions have emerged from the membership of St. Herman's.